Wake up, Arewa!

The following piece by my young friend, Adamu Tilde, generated a good deal of interest on social media. It was first shared with me by one of the northern leaders from the Northeast. Interestingly, Tilde was with me the night before his piece was shared with me but he didn’t mention that he authored a trending article. The write-up is a wake-up call of sorts. You don’t have to agree with his submission; but if you’re from Arewa, it tugs at your conscience. I know it weighs heavily on mine. I asked Adamu to fact check the figures before sharing them here and he confirmed that the numbers were corroborated by other sources. Enjoy.

During the weekend we were hosted to a befitting dinner by one of the best brains around. He made some revelations that kept me awake for some days now. Earlier, a mentor and former National Economic Adviser, confessed to us that, at the moment, South Western Nigeria can be likened to what South Korea was ten years ago based on Human Development Index.

In his analysis, our host and my mentor said: the combined workforce of the major oil companies amount to roughly ten thousand staff, of which 70% are Yorubas with an average income of fifty million/annum. That’s about 350billion naira from a single sector. Now extrapolate that to say Finance, IT, Hospitality, Consulting, Transport, Telecommunications, Manufacturing, etc. Let’s not delve into remittances from abroad. That’s in a league of its own.

Since then I couldn’t keep still. My head couldn’t wrap around that expensive discovery. The combined budget of Kano and Bauchi states with a population of almost 20 million and six million respectively isn’t up to a yearly income of ten thousand folks. Something is wrong. Something must give in. We cannot continue like this unless we consciously signed  to a life of enslavement in our country.

When asked about the factors behind this wide disparity, my mentor’s explanation left me cold, overwhelmed and almost hopeless. Hopeless because we’re yet to even realize that that’s the reality on ground. We cannot continue with our march in geometric production of children we have no need of and expect to produce and train quality brains that can compete equitably in a globalized economy. No way.

Our intellectual laziness is second to none. Our penchant for easy money and rent seeking enterprise is sickening. Our rush to hit big without commensurate investment in personal development and delayed gratification have caused us this. This is the truth of the matter. To paraphrase Adamu Adamu, we cannot afford to continue to live in fear of confronting our own inequities. We will never be able to solve our problems if all we can do is pretend that they don’t exist, or that there is something that cannot be mentioned. The earlier we start this difficult conversation the better.

My greatest worry is that the agriculture where we have a competitive advantage, given our vast land and cheap labor, is in limbo. We have limited expertise especially on technical know how. We have no presence in value addition and supply chain management. We concentrate in production which is less profitable. The very day folks down south of Niger discover that it’s cheaper to procure raw materials for their agricultural-based companies in the north than importation, that’s when we will understand that 21st century is a no respecter of conservatism.

Quality education is expensive. Training a child is no joke. Truth be told, the resources at our hand cannot sufficiently trained our children to compete at the global stage. It’s just not possible. We have to invest heavily on education. And please spare me the lazy excuse that it’s the responsibility of government. We don’t have different government with the South West. It’s all about priority. We were not outsmarted in number of wives or children; why, because that’s where our priority is. Fact is: you can never be in Chevron, Total, McKinsey, Accenture, Microsoft, IBM, Google, etc. by chance. It’s to be planned, designed and well-ochestrated. It’s that simple.